Easter Italian Style

Happy Easter Tree!

 Do you remember, as a kid, saying " Hey Pasquali!"

I grew up in Toronto, between the Junction area and Bloor West Village.  It was normal to hear Italian, Maltese, Polish, Ukraine, Latvian and Lithuanian spoken.   Most of my friends were born in another country and their parents only spoke their native tongue to us kids.  I quickly learned  if food was being served at a friends house, or someone was in trouble with their parents and unfortunately when it was time for bed.   Parents never changed their language for me,  they knew I'd figure out what they were saying or go hungry or perhaps, I might just go home. Regardless though of language or nationality not one parent let me go hungry.

Years later here I am in Italy and word memories come back to me; like pasquali, muncha, casa, capeche.   Unfortunately, as a child (and adult) I did not understand everything.  Similar to the words of a song I thought I knew,  turns out I was just talking (singing) gibberish.  Glad I fought the urge to list Italian and Lithuanian as spoken languages on my resume.

Easter in Italian is Pasqua, which got me thinking about pasquali,  a word I used frequently as a child when greeting my friends (along with some hand movement I thought meant "what's up?")   Pasqua means Easter and likely my hand gestures meant something impolite.   

Pasquali is actually a masculine name, but that does not let me off the hook for all those women I called Pasquali.

The sisters and their Mum

Ciccio and his Easter bunny

Lisa and Ilario

On Easter Sunday we were invited to feast at Larry's with his family and entourage.  You might remember these lovely people from our Christmas post (yes it was only moments ago) Larry, his wife Lisa, her family of sisters and husbands, mothers, in-laws, friends, sons, co-workers and us Canadians.

I think he sees her

The hug ensues

View from the balcony

Delicious food;
First course, cheeses, olives, picked eggplant and fresh bread, and wine.
Second and third were a blur,  spaghetti with lamb pieces, quickly followed by traditional lasgna (becamel creme, prosciutto,  peas and lasgna noodles) and wine.
Fourth?  must have been the plate of lamb chunks and peas, yes wine too.
Fifth,  a pork roast with bread, plus wine.
I think there was a sixth but by then I was full.

The Easter parade wove through town and passed below Larry's balcony which provided a great aerial view.    The parade started at the church that sits high up on the hill beside the Norman castle.  There were 3 floats, one with a statue of Mary,  one with Jesus and one of Joseph.   The floats are carried on the shoulders of men wearing blue satin capes.   The idea is that Mary wanders around town looking for Jesus, he in turn wanders looking for her.  Joseph is also meandering but I never got an explanation for what role he played in this production.   At noon Mary and Jesus end up in the same street, by accident? and they run (I mean run not jog) to hug each other.  The men in capes run towards each other and the statues hug, as well as any statue can, then they (men and statues) turn to run in opposite directions then, turn back and run again at each other; crowds cheering and the statues hug once again.   At this point all calms down and the procession becomes an orderly line of blue caped men, bands, statues, priests and cheering crowds that travel through the town.

Surprisingly shops were open Good Friday and Easter Sunday but Easter Monday everything was closed.  This played havoc with my shopping schedule.  

Easter Monday is a traditional BBQ/picnic day regardless of weather and everyone it seemed were outside enjoying the day.  So in keeping with this tradition we decided to have a BBQ here in the marina.  

Toe tapping music

Tracy entertaining the men

The small group of cruisers had finished the Easter BBQ early afternoon and sat looking at each other.   Surely everyone was thinking the same as me " now what? " Suddenly a car pulled up and out jumped David's dad,  Rocco's nephew, a large jolly man and two other guys, can't remember names except for Rocco's nephew, Pepe.    

Pepe brings out a guitar and starts playing and singing Calabrian folk music.  Which included intricate hand gestures.   Only in Italy can someone sing, play and tell a story using their hands at the same time.  

The music is toe tapping, similar to gypsy, east coast Canada, fun folk music, which made me feel like dancing and laughing.   

The name of the music is Tartanella and in speaking with a friend she emailed me this information

 "there is an old Dean Martin tune "that's amore" and there is a line that goes "hearts will play tippy-tippy-Tay, tippy-tippy-Tay like a gay tarantella".  I wondered why he would sing about happy spiders?"

Tarantella is a dance that requires great energy. And gay here has the old fashioned meaning of cheerful and lively. 

The dance was supposedly an antidote to the sometimes fatal sting of the Tarantula spider, the constant dancing acting to hold off the soporific effects of the spider venom. So if you didn't dance a Tarantella after being bitten you would slip into a coma and die. 

The above 2 paragraphs I copied from a site. Seemed that everyone regardless of age can dance this lively jig and sing all the words, properly.  

Mag